Exploring the use of Sensorial Cartography as an Ethnographic Method

March 23, 2025 3:42 AM

[Blurred Spaces] is proposed as part of the Embodied Ecologies project led by Wageningen University, which consists of a major collaborative investigation into how people perceive and feel exposure to toxic products, how human bodies interact with a multiplicity of these products on a daily basis, and how they try to minimise their effects.
posted by chavenet (3 comments total)

John Ruskin (1891, as cited in Kaika, 2004) defines the “true nature of home” to be separated from “anomie”, such as the glue used by shoemakers. So why does Reynaldo consider the pagawaan a part of their home when he knows it’s bad for his family’s health?

Ruskin's social criticism also involved education. He hated to see children forced by “modern education into toil utterly repugnant to their natures” and wanted “to educate for education's sake only” both girls and boys. He criticised middle class parents who only regarded education as a way for their sons “to ring with confidence the visitors' bell at double-belled door; which shall result ultimately in establishment of a double-belled door to his own house,” and not as a means to develop a child's imagination. (There were two bells on grand houses, one bell for the guests and another for the servants and tradesmen) [wsws]

posted by HearHere at 7:14 AM on March 23 [5 favorites]

[This is {friggin} Good]
Humans are, I guess, a collection of things more than a state of individuality. I think I first got that idea from The Emperor of All Maladies, which suggests the preponderance of cancer in humans is inevitable for animals who have spanned the globe, interacted with every natural substance, created their own unnatural substances, and then expanded their life span while being so willfully exposed.

Personally, I find my child-seeking friends and family to be often tragically upset by their battles with infertility. Like...All of them, almost. Most of them eventually overcame. Often, with help from med-tech. I still don't know if this is more a sign that our environment is causing sterility, or that discussion of these issues is become destigmatized. Kind of a glass half full/empty thing.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:55 AM on March 23 [3 favorites]

The research on impacts from microplastics on fertility, specifically with regards to sperm viability, is concerning

I'm not inclined to rewatch Children of Men anytime soon, but yeah
posted by ginger.beef at 6:58 PM on March 23